


An Extremely Simple Truth

by EvilReceptionistOfDoom



Series: Hunters [1]
Category: Seirei no Moribito | Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Genre: Advice, Assassins & Hitmen, Attempted Murder, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Deathbed Promise, Depressing, Everyone is miserable, Father-Son Relationship, Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hunter Training, Institutionalized Abuse, Life Lessons, Non-Sexual Bondage, Parent Death, Past Sexual Abuse, Patricide, Perseverence, Powerlessness, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Suicide Attempt, it could always be worse, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-01 16:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10194113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilReceptionistOfDoom/pseuds/EvilReceptionistOfDoom
Summary: In the wake of tragedy, the boy who will grow up to be Jin comes to terms with his future occupation.Precedes the anime by six years.





	1. Grief

**Author's Note:**

> _Today is not the same as yesterday - tomorrow will not necessarily come tomorrow._  
>  _I learned this extremely simple truth in an instant._  
>  -from the Moribito gaiden comic, "Jin", by Square Enix
> 
> The Mikado's assassins begin their training as young children, taught in secret by their fathers until they are ready to assume the mantle of Hunter. The role passes to the youngest son. Until Taiga Amusuran was thirteen, his younger brother Touji was training to succeed their father; but Touji died, and Taiga was suddenly thrust into a role he neither wanted nor fit into. Shortly afterward, his friend and betrothed, Mayuna, was killed in front of him, collateral damage in a power-grab by the Third Empress' father. Taiga blamed himself for not being able to save her, and with the help of Suyou, the boy who eventually grows up to be Hyoku, he killed the men responsible for Mayuna's death. This story picks up after those events but before the flashback seen in the anime. Taiga (not yet Jin) is fourteen. Mon is thirty-nine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taiga's father tries to kill him.

Lord Amusuran was a bitter, cold-hearted man.  The servants whispered pityingly about it.  He had been a cynical sort to begin with, but after his wife died giving birth to their daughter, who died shortly after - and even worse, after his beloved son Touji passed away of a sudden illness at age nine - he seemed to shut off all emotions except a simmering hatred of everything around him, sensed but never expressed, and the occasional ice-sharp outburst of rage.    
    But it was the remaining son, Taiga, about whom the servants whispered the most.  They felt sorry for him and treated him as kindly as possible because of this.  Lord Amusuran had favored Touji in life; in death, the younger son became a perfected ideal in his head, a standard to which Taiga could never come close.  Taiga had lost his mother and sister as a child; as a teen he had lost, in his brother, his best friend as well.  When his betrothed, Mayuna, was killed by brigands, the boy ceased to smile, ceased to laugh, in truth ceased to be a boy at all.  He scowled at the ground instead, sleeping late in the mornings, moping through his meals and shuffling listlessly through his lessons.  Yet the father showed no sympathy for the son, only brusque impatience, or nothing.  
    What the servants did not know, however, was that Taiga was always moody and tired for another reason besides grief.  Every night after the household was asleep, Lord Amusuran would wake his son and take the boy out to the woods to train in the assassins' arts.  At night the man's indifference became fury.  The boy's mistakes incensed him, and he punished them cruelly.  "Touji was never this careless!" he would snap.  "Learn it right or you'll be dead the first mission they give you!"  
    Taiga tried.  He really did.  Despite the beatings and beratings, Taiga held on to the childish notion that, if he could only somehow impress the man, his father would love him again.  Indeed, young Taiga was a natural at most of the things his father taught him, but he was so far behind in the training from the start that no amount of excellence could have been enough.  All Lord Amusuran could see - all he could ever see - was that Taiga was not Touji.  And that drove in the fact of Touji's death deeper and deeper, until the pain was encased in a thick, impenetrable callus of meanness.  The training grew harsher with every passing day.    
    Gradually, then, Taiga began to realise that his father was not going to change for the better, no matter how well the boy could duplicate the sword kata he learned, or hit a bullseye with a shuriken, or scale rooftops and trees like a squirrel, or go undetected in a crowded tavern.  His father would never care, just as he hadn't cared when Mayuna died.    
    Gradually, Taiga came to despise his father.    
    The turning point came when Lord Amusuran announced that he and his son were going on a trip to an onsen deep in the mountains and might not be back for some time.  He told his son to pack for a long journey.  Taiga had already learned to dread anything his father planned; this was no exception.  But what he imagined was tame compared to the reality.  
    They went into the mountains early one morning and hiked all day and all night.  Halfway through the next day, they arrived at a run-down little shack perched on a steep slope among tall conifers.  Once inside, the boy shed his pack on his father's example and waited silently for further instruction.  The man had taken quite a lot of rope from his pack; now he turned upon the boy.  Without warning, he attacked.  
    Taiga had gotten a lot better at countering unexpected attacks.  This time, however, he was unarmed, and the young teen was no match for his Hunter father.  Lord Amusuran overpowered him and, to the boy's horror, pinned him against the floor and bound him hand and foot.  The bonds were tight and somewhat painful.  Worse, Taiga had no idea why this had been done or what his father planned.  Was this some kind of punishment?  What had he done to elicit this?  
    "In the event you are ever captured," Lord Amusuran said gruffly, "you must be able to escape, no matter what.  You must learn this now, before you become a Hunter.  A Hunter made prisoner is an embarrassment to the Emperor, and if he cannot escape and kill his captors, he is honor-bound to commit suicide at the first possible opportunity."  
    "Father?"  Taiga winced internally at the fear in his voice.  His father heard it, too, and his eyes narrowed with disgust.  
    "I'm going home now," said Lord Amusuran coldly.  "I'm not coming back to save you.  If you can't escape, you will die here."  
    "But-"  
    "No one comes here.  This is part of the Emperor's private hunting reserve.  Even if you call for help, the nearest settlement is a day's hard trek from here.  There is no one to hear you."  
    Taiga was speechless.  As Lord Amusuran rose and hefted his pack, the boy said desperately, "But how do I escape?"  
    His father ignored him.  The man picked up the boy's pack as well and left.  Taiga heard him bar the door and felt his heart go into his throat.  He struggled a little, but the knots his father had tied were, naturally, impeccable.  Panic rose in Taiga's chest.  His father was trying to kill him!  How was he supposed to escape without even a hint of where to start?  He could already tell there was no way to loosen the ropes.  What was he supposed to do?!    
    As he began to consider the problem from an analytical standpoint, however, the boy slowly calmed down.  He wouldn't let his father win.  If Lord Amusuran wanted him dead, Taiga would escape from here just to spite him.  ...And then, as his father had said, the boy would kill the one who had captured him.  After all, that's what a real Hunter would do.  
    Taiga examined his surroundings.  His fear had left him.  Instead, he felt only cold calculation and the burning will to see his father dead.  He spotted a warped plank jutting out where the wall met the floor and rolled across the ground to inspect it closer.  He could wear the rope down by rubbing it against a rough surface, and this just might do.  
    Awkwardly the boy maneuvered himself so that his wrists were against the edge of the board.  He tried to position it just right, but even so his sanding efforts rewarded him with splinters more than they cut into the rope.  Still, it was the best plan he had, and he could think about other options while he worked - not to mention how he was going to get home without anything but the clothes on his back.  His father had mentioned a village a day from here; that was closer than home.  He could go to the village and figure things out from there.  He knew his chances at revenge would be best if he could surprise his father, so as not to let Lord Amusuran get the upper hand.  Maybe he could get the man while he slept.  He would have to think about it.  _And this is an excellent place for thinking_ , he thought drily.  
    Eventually, in the course of his attempt to wear through the rope, the boy discovered he had loosened it enough that he could squish the more flexible of his hands through one loop of the bonds.  With a little more work, he got both hands free, and then he was able to untie his ankles without much trouble.  It had by now been many hours; the sky had gone dark, and he couldn't see the inside of the shack.  It was also cold, and Taiga was exhausted, and his hands were bruised and full of splinters, and the last thing he wanted to do was get lost trying to find the village, so he gave up for the night and slept.  
    Taiga woke as soon as the sun was up, stiff and shivering but with renewed determination.  He was still convinced his father meant to kill him; the sooner he got to the village, the sooner he could get home, and the less Lord Amusuran would expect him.  He climbed out of the hut through a small hole in the roof rather than bother with unbarring the door.  There was no time to lose.  He meant to reach civilization before nightfall.  
    While the boy's father had not given the location of the village, he had revealed this was part of the Mikado's hunting grounds.  Taiga could picture a map of the royal holdings that his father had made him memorize, and he could guess, from their hike, about where Lord Amusuran had taken him.  The village his father had spoken of must be a tiny community called Gashou, nestled in a mountain valley and inhabited by Yaku and Yogo tea farmers, whose plants preferred the cooler, wetter alpine climate.  With the image of the map before his mind's eye, the boy hiked as fast as he could towards the west.  As the sun was beginning to fade, he spotted a vague smoky haze over a hillside and pushed himself to a jog.  Sure enough, in the darkening furrow between the hill and the next peak lay a little cluster of huts; the smoke came from hearths and cooking fires.  
    At last Taiga began to feel somewhat confident in his plan.  He would spend the night here and follow the road back to Kousenkyo at first light.  As he entered the village, many people came towards him, confused and concerned.  He told them he had been foraging for a particular herb in the hills and became lost, and that he had been wandering for several days.  He looked disheveled enough that they believed him without reservation; they gave him food and water, and he spent the night in a warm hut, by a fire, plotting his revenge.


	2. Hate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taiga tries to kill his father.

Everything went precisely as he hoped.  Taiga got directions from the villagers, thanked them profusely, and left.  Once he was out of sight of the village, he broke into a run.  All the training had been effective in this realm if no other: he could run forever if he had to.  The road was a hundred times faster than the cross-country bushwhacking of the preceding day.  He reached Kousenkyo in the early evening, where he easily stole a snack and a knife, and then he made for Upper Ougi and the Amusuran manor.  Now, at last, he meandered; if his father were not already asleep when he returned home, his plan would never work.  
    A little after midnight the boy climbed the outer wall of the manor and dropped into the garden, where he slunk into the house like a shadow and down the corridor to the room where his father slept.  He had already learned to move silently - that was one of the very first things his father taught him, drilled into his head by a painful blow every time his father, eyes closed, heard him approach to touch his father's arm.  Again and again Lord Amusuran had made the boy sneak up on him in a wood where every centimeter of ground was covered in crackling twigs and rustling leaves, not just until his son succeeded but until his son succeeded every time, and then again, until Taiga could do it with his eyes closed.  Now the boy was grateful for those lessons, for he knew with certainty that he could get to his father's side without being detected.  
    He drew the knife before he moved for the door of his father's room.  He did not have much confidence he could open the door silently, so he settled for moving the sliding screen as little as possible, then waiting a long moment before stepping through the narrow gap into the familiar chamber.  His father lay on the futon with a thin sheet over him, breathing regular and slow.  After a long, tense wait, Taiga decided his father was, indeed, asleep, and he hurried soundlessly to the man's side.  He had been taught the fastest, surest way to kill a man, but he wasn't convinced he could hit the place accurately enough, or get the knife in deep enough, to kill his father before the man woke.  On the other hand, if he cut his father's throat, there was no guarantee he would be able to do it quick enough to be sure of success before his father came after him.  A brief deliberation, and he decided to go for the jugular.  He angled the blade, collected himself, and then stabbed.  
    In an instant, Taiga was on the ground and his father was on top of him, gripping the wrist of the hand with the knife in such a way that the boy's hand lost all its strength and the knife fell to the floor.  It seemed Taiga had not been so silent and his father not so tired as it appeared.  With his son pinned, the man picked up the knife with his free hand and brought it to the boy's throat.  "You dare raise a weapon against your father?" he hissed.  "Did you think you would kill me?  Is that it?"  
    Taiga was trembling, suddenly feeling like he was going to cry.  But startled and scared as he was, he was angry more, and he snapped back, "Why shouldn't I?  You left me there to die!  You've wanted me dead ever since Touji died because you wish it was me and not him, and you wanted it to look like an accident-"  His voice cut off as his father pressed his fist against Taiga's windpipe hard.  He leaned in close, his eyes cold flame, emotionless.  "If I wanted to kill you, don't you think I could?  I could kill you a dozen different ways that would all look natural or accidental.  I wouldn't have to take you out into the woods to starve."  
    Taiga swallowed hard.  His teeth were chattering so he clenched his jaw tight and glowered at his father.  "So do it," he said hoarsely, as loud as he could.  "Kill me and remarry and start all over.  Pretend like Mom and Touji and I never existed.  I'm sure your next son will be strong enough to satisfy you.  Third try's the charm, right, Father?"  
    Lord Amusuran didn't even show a trace of a reaction to this remark.  He had the dead, pitiless look of a hawk staring down a rabbit.  Taiga could feel tears streaming down his face but he didn't care.  He was infuriated.  All the hurt and grief of losing Touji and Mayuna and his mother and baby sister was like a storm inside him, and he couldn't understand how his father could be so impassive.  All he wanted was to hurt his father the way he himself was hurt, in any way he could.  "You're nothing but a soulless monster!" he hissed.  "You killed Mayuna and you killed Touji and you don't even care!  I'm _glad_ Touji's dead, so he doesn't have to suffer at your hands anymore.  Just do it - you said so yourself, you could make it look accidental.  You hate me anyways.  I hate you and I'd rather be dead than have to see you ever again.  You're just an evil, empty-hearted old man who ruins everything he touches.  I hate you.  If you don't kill me I'll burn the house down while you're sleeping and kill us both.  I won't sleep or eat or rest until you're dead."  
    But the boy's words fell upon stone.  His father continued to watch him without feeling or response, his eyes chips of granite, his mouth a flat line.  Taiga kept trying to say anything that might produce a response, even one of anger, himself becoming more and more upset; he couldn't shout because he could still hardly breathe, but he tried anyways.  He tried to struggle free, too, but his father had him pinned very effectively - one hand by the wrist, the other squished underneath him, and his body and legs held fast by a knee and the man's other leg.  Taiga felt lightheaded from lack of air, but he refused to be silent.  "Don't you feel _anything?_   Anything at all?!  You killed your own son and you don't even care!  He was just a little kid!"  With this last remark, Taiga couldn't even form words anymore.  He dissolved into open sobs.  His head spun with lack of oxygen, and when his father finally released the pressure against his throat, the boy hardly even noticed.  Lord Amusuran stood; his son curled in on himself in the middle of the floor, unable to do anything but cry.  The man stood there, waiting silently.  He remained stoic.  When Taiga finally calmed down a little, the boy slowly sat up and brushed at his face with his sleeve.  He stared at the ground a long while, then stood himself.    
    "Go to bed and rest," said his father.  "Tomorrow you'll do it again.  This was an easy restraint pattern to escape; professionals will be more thorough."  
    "What?"  Taiga stared at his father in disbelief.  "Are you serious?"  
    "You must do everything multiple times to be sure you know it," the man replied evenly.  "Go to bed, Taiga."  
    "No!  I'm not going to do it!  You didn't even teach me anything - you just left me alone and expected me to figure it out.  How am I supposed to learn anything if you never help?  You say you're not trying to kill me, but I bet you're hoping I'll fail and die and you won't have to deal with me anymore.  Well, I'm sorry I'm not good enough for you, Father, but I'm not going to let you treat me this way.  If you think I can't make it as a Hunter, you might as well kill me now and spare yourself the shame of having raised such a weakling."  
    "I'm not going to argue with you.  Go to bed and don't question me again."  
    But Taiga's anger had never cooled, and now it flared into an inferno.  His father still held the knife, but his father's sword was on a rack by the futon, and in an instant Taiga raced over to it and grabbed it off the stand.  His father saw what he was doing and moved to intercept; he took hold of his son's arm at the same time as the boy snatched up the sword.  He found a pressure point and crushed it under his thumb, so that his son let out a yelp of pain and dropped the sword.  His father slapped him and said gruffly, "A Hunter never shows pain.  You are not to cry out like that again."  
    Instead of responding, the boy struck his father with his free hand.  His father caught his fist and shoved it back against the wall.  So Taiga kicked him.  Grim-faced, his father kneed him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.  He let go and the boy fell to the floor, gasping uselessly until the paralysis passed.    
    "Are you finished?" his father said coolly.  
    "I won't be finished til you're dead.  I'm going to avenge my brother," Taiga growled.  He struggled to rise.  His father shoved him back down.  The boy would not be silent, however.  "If I can't do it now, I'll find some other way.  I'll put ground glass in your rice.  I know where you keep your blowgun; I'll shoot you with a poison dart.  I'll find a way to poison you, or I'll spook your horse, or I'll hire mercenaries to ambush you.  I don't know how, but I'll get you.  I won't rest til you're dead."  
    Rather than react, Lord Amusuran gave his son a long, emotionless look, then turned and walked away.  Taiga couldn't believe it.  How could his father be so immovable?  What would it take to get him to be anything more than a statue?  Was he even human at all?  
    With a sudden burst of determination, Taiga snatched up the sword again.  But he didn't turn the blade upon his father; he turned it upon himself.  
    "What are you doing?!"  Once again, the boy was too slow.  His father had gotten the sword out of his hands before he could make even a superficial cut.  Taiga thrashed against him, his impotence against this man burning almost as much as his hatred.    
    "Let me go!" he yelled.  When his father clamped a hand over his mouth to shut him up, the boy bit him as savagely as a wild dog.  The man struck him again, and the boy felt his tears return.  "I hate you," he whispered.  "I hate you!  I don't want to be anything like you!  I'd rather die!"  
    "Taiga, stop," his father said sternly.    
    "Get your hands off me!  Let go of me!  I'll kill myself before I become like you!  Maybe _then_ you'll feel something-"  
    " _Stop_ ," his father said again, but this time his tone had softened.  The hands that restrained him moved a little, so that their grip was gentler and more like an embrace.  "Taiga, please.  Stop."  
    "Don't touch me," the boy quavered, but he stopped struggling, slumped against his father's arms and began to cry violently.  He felt like he was in the center of a maelstrom that could not be stopped: shame, hate, misery, fear, guilt swirling like a tornado around him and inside him.  He really did want to die, he realised.  He couldn't stand knowing that Touji was dead and Mayuna was dead and he himself, the least deserving of their happy trio, was alive, and the thought of turning into a cold, hard, merciless killing machine like his father, a tool rather than a person, was unbearable.  But he let himself be held and tried to forget that the person holding him was the one responsible for his brother's death, and that Mayuna might still be alive if his father and the other Hunters had acted sooner, and that his father hadn't even shed a tear over his mother and the sister she died giving birth to.  Right now he just wanted someone else to feel his pain, to share it.  And without being able to see his father's impassive mask of a face, Taiga could pretend that his father felt the same as he did.  He could pretend that, instead of saying nothing, his father was saying, "I miss them, too."  That his father actually cared.


	3. Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taiga's father dies.

The illusion didn't last long.  Taiga was exhausted and drained, and he slept deeply, but when he woke it was to his father, and within fifteen minutes he had been taken to the cellar beneath the garden shed and was once again bound and this time gagged as well.  "So that you know this isn't a plot to kill you," his father explained evenly, "I will return in a few hours to appraise your progress.  Do not yell or try to attract anyone's attention or I'll have to kill whoever finds you to keep our secret from getting out.  You will have to learn how to escape quickly, so I expect you to be free by the time I get back."  He paused, then said, "It helps to be patient and deliberate."  He left.    
    From that moment on Taiga despaired of ever feeling as if his father were actually a father and not some yokai sent to torture him for letting Mayuna die.  The lessons continued, getting progressively harder, while Lord Amusuran demanded his son get faster and more effective.  He at least gave a few tips, here and there, but for the most part Taiga was expected to figure out everything on his own.  At night his father took him into the woods to practice fighting, and during the day his father took him to the cellar to practice escaping; he had told the household that Taiga was on a trip visiting some distant cousin, so that the boy's extended absence didn't raise suspicion.  Eventually his father announced that Taiga had gotten good enough at escaping to be tested with something an expert - like, say, one of the Hunters - would do.  This involved bonds that, if strained, would cut off the blood to his brain and make him pass out.  His father remained in the cellar for this, explaining that a botched escape could result in death.  Needless to say, Taiga ended up unconscious several times before his father finally showed him, vaguely, what to do.  But at least he hadn't been left entirely on his own...  That wouldn't happen until the third day with this horrible rope configuration.  And the fighting lessons were no better: his father still refused to let him practice with a bokken, insisting they use real swords.  Taiga was soon so badly sliced up he looked like he'd been sleeping in a thornbush.  He felt like he never got any better.  And there was endurance training, too, brutally hard runs that many times he had to stop in the midst of because whatever what in his stomach had decided to come back up.  His father never commented on this, but Taiga couldn't help thinking the man saw it as yet another sign of weakness.  The only thing it seemed the boy was really good at was target practice, with throwing darts, blowdarts, arrows, even rocks.  ...So naturally his father decided that didn't need to be part of the training regimen.  
    Everything blurred together.  A few hours of sleep - five or six if he was really lucky, but usually three or four.  A long run, often involving a climb or a swim at some stage, generally beginning an hour or two before dawn and ending an hour or two after.  Down to the cellar to practice escaping whatever type of bonds his father decided on.  Into Kousenkyo in the garb of a commoner to practice blending in and information-gathering.  His father would give him some assignment - get inside that building; find out some specific detail about that stranger; steal some trifle from some shop without being seen; convince this other stranger to give away some item; and so on.  These errands usually lasted a few hours.  Then back to the manor for 'strength training', pushups and crunches and lifting and the like, for an hour or two.  Once it was dark, into the woods to spar with hand or sword for an eternity, and finally back to the house to snatch as much sleep as he could.  And then his father would wake him up what felt like an instant later, and it would start all over again.  Somewhere in there he would get in a few bites of rice or porridge or fish, a cup of tea, a persimmon or an orange if he were lucky.  Now and again, when his father was called away on a mission and the boy had a few hours to himself, a bath and an early bedtime; but those occasions were rare and precious.  There were no more academic studies, and there certainly wasn't time for recreation.  Taiga had no idea what his father had told the servants to keep them from talking to him or getting in the way of the training, but they kept their distance, casting quick worried glances in his direction and looking away as soon as they noticed he saw them.  Once or twice Suyou's father visited, bringing his son, so that the two could fight each other, like a pair of dogs in an arena.  Suyou tried to make conversation, but Taiga couldn't bring himself to be friendly in return.  He was only going through the motions of being alive because that was what was in front of him.  He had seriously considered, many times, how he might go about ending things, but as yet he hadn't had a good opportunity.  It did not occur to him that his father might be keeping him in training around the clock for precisely this reason.  
      At last a respite came, in the form of a mission that required Lord Amusuran to be gone several days.  Taiga didn't see him leave or bother to say goodbye.  He slept instead - slept deeply and without interruption for sixteen hours straight, then ate a real meal for the first time in ages.  The food he'd once taken for granted tasted amazing now.  He sat in the garden doing absolutely nothing for more than an hour, just watching a pair of squirrels chase each other up and down the yard.  He read a book.  He took a long bath and went to bed knowing that his father would be back the next day or the day after, and wishing his father would never come back at all.  The next day he went to the cemetary to offer prayers at the graves of his mother, his siblings, and his once-betrothed.  He strolled as slowly as possible there and back, and when he got home he ate a big lunch and took a nap.  The servants still kept their distance, but they seemed happier, and the boy didn't miss that they made his favorite foods for dinner.  They must be just as relieved to have the master gone as Taiga was.  
    His father didn't come back the next day, or the next, or the next.  After a whole week, the boy wondered what had happened, but he also thought he hadn't better look a gift horse in the mouth, and he continued to take full advantage of not having to train twenty hours a day.  He finally felt rested and whole, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.  It was like a soothing dream.  
    On the eighth day from his father's departure, visitors arrived.  
    As the acting master of the house, Taiga came to greet them and stopped.  He recognized one of them, a man in his early twenties with long black hair and eyes like a snake.  That man was one of the Hunters.  The other two he did not know, but he could only guess they were Hunters as well.  The man at the front of the group had a scar under one eye and all of them had the look of warriors about them.  The boy welcomed them and dismissed the servants when the man with the scar requested it, closing the door to the drawing room and sitting across from the visitors, his back very straight and his face expressionless.  
    "Your father is dead," the man with the scar said.    
    "I see," said Taiga.  
    The man frowned almost imperceptibly.  "You are not fifteen yet, and you have not completed training, but with your father gone, you must now collect your inheritance.  You will move out of this house and come to live in our barracks as soon as the funeral is complete."  
    "I'm sorry," said Taiga, "but I don't understand."  
    "The Mikado has eight Hunters.  He must always have eight.  Once your father has been buried, you will take his spot among our number."  
    "I see," Taiga said softly.  
    "Your father died honorably," said the man.    
    Taiga said nothing.


	4. Wisdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taiga gains a new father.

Shortly after moving to the barracks and officially entering the emperor's service, Taiga was mechanically preparing for yet another day of harsh training when Mon, the man with the scar, summoned him to the garden behind the barracks.  Mon was the leader of the Hunters and had taken on most of the remainder of Taiga's training so that Taiga could be ready to start going on missions with the others as soon as possible.  He was just as bad as Taiga's father had been, and possibly even more demanding; rather than say nothing he would bark criticisms and strike the boy when he made a mistake.  Taiga found him frightening and dreaded each day's work with him.  
    Today, however, Mon simply said, "Let's go for a walk."  
    Taiga followed him into the woods.  They walked for a long time, saying nothing.  At last they came to the remnants of an old shrine; here there was a small clearing with a stone pavement, and there Mon sat and indicated Taiga to join him.  The boy waited obediently for the man to speak.    
    "Taiga," said Mon, "your father told me that you asked him to kill you.  Is that true?"  
    The boy looked at the ground.  
    "He said you tried to kill yourself."  
    "It wasn't anything, sir," mumbled Taiga.  
    Mon was silent a moment, choosing his words strategically.  "I know what it's like to feel alone," he said at last.  "To feel like there is no reason to keep going, like everything will always be awful, like things can only get worse.  You are struggling now, but you won't be forever.  I know because I've been there."  The man unbelted his kimono and removed it, so that he was shirtless in the morning sunlight.  His body was muscular and taut and bore many scars, but he indicated one in particular, a long white line across his stomach.  "I did that to myself, Taiga.  I tried to kill myself.  I was only a little older than you are now.  But your father stopped me.  He saved my life."  
    Taiga didn't know what Mon wanted him to say, so he didn't say anything.  Mon studied his face, then said slowly, "I'm going to tell you something I have told no one else, a secret which you must never speak of.  I'm telling you this because I want you to understand that, while good things never last forever, neither do bad things."  
    Taiga wanted to stop him, to tell him he wasn't suicidal and didn't need an inspirational talk.  But he didn't speak.  Partly he was afraid to; he hadn't known this man long enough to be able to predict or read his actions, and Mon intimidated him.  But he was also curious to know why the Hunters' leader would have tried to end his own life, what Mon's secret was, why Mon was bothering to tell him of all people.  What did this man care if Taiga wished every night that he would pass away in his sleep like Touji had and never have to face another day of thankless training, failure, grief?  So long as the boy fulfilled his duties to the Mikado, why should Mon give a rat's ass about Taiga's mental or emotional state?  It didn't make sense.  
    "When I was sixteen," Mon began, "I had my first audience with the emperor - not the current emperor, but his father.  You must understand, I had been training as a hunter since I was five.  I had been overjoyed to enter the Mikado's service.  When I finally went before his throne, I felt honored and proud.  Then, the next day, I recieved a summons to the royal bathhouse for that evening.  I was puzzled and showed it to my superior - the man who was then Mon - and he took on a grim expression and told me that, as a Hunter, the Mikado's will was my only concern, and that I must do whatever he said, no matter how terrible.  I was naive and foolish and I did not understand what my leader meant.  I went to the baths, thinking this was some sort of reward for my having completed some trivial mission a few days before.  I did not realise that the Mikado had taken an interest in me for a vastly different reason.  When I arrived at the baths and discovered the Mikado's true intentions for me, I could not believe it - but there was nothing I could do.  If I fought him, even a little, I would be put to a shameful death for attacking the emperor.  If I refused or resisted, it would be the same.  I returned to the barracks shaken and traumatized, but when I told my superior what had happened, he replied that it was the emperor's will and I must submit."  
    Taiga stared at him, disbelieving.  He could not imagine anyone in the world being able to take advantage of this man.  How could they?  Mon was the greatest warrior of all the Hunters.  He knew everything about everyone and could do almost anything.  The boy could not imagine him in any situation where Mon was not the one in control.  But he also couldn't imagine Mon as a teenager, or inexperienced, or uncertain.  
    "The Mikado summoned me often - to the baths, to his bedchamber.  All of our number knew what was going on.  Some pitied me, others pretended ignorance for my sake - but not all.  There was a man among the Hunters - he's dead now - who took to calling me 'whore' and taking every opportunity to engage in little abuses of his own.  He called it teasing, but it was only a few steps short of what the Emperor himself was doing.  I despised this man, but he was much bigger than me, and stronger, and I was no match for him at that age.  Once when we were sparring he pinned me down and slipped his hand inside my kimono and murmured something about the emperor sharing his whores.  Our leader told him to disengage, as he had won the fight, but I was so angry and ashamed that as soon as he let go I struck him so hard I broke his nose.  He turned around and choked me with both hands until the rest of our colleagues pulled us apart to stop him killing me.  My neck was so bruised that I could not speak or make a sound for over a month.  The man took the opportunity to visit my room in the middle of the night.  We wrestled; he got the better of me quickly and bound me hand and foot, and while I lay there unable to cry out or even to tell him to stop, he got his revenge for my breaking his nose.  And he returned every night after that to do it again.  
    "I cannot describe for you how wretched I felt at that time.  Two men I should have been able to trust implicitly - my brother-in-arms and my Emperor - had betrayed and used me, and I was helpless to stop them.  And when I went to our leader and told him what my fellow Hunter had done, our leader told me that a true warrior could defend against anything, and that he would not call off our colleague because I ought to be able to stop him myself.  When he said that, and I realised that I truly had no recourse, I fell into a despair so complete that I felt my future comprised nothing but an eternal, ever-deepening hell.  I would never be strong enough to stop my colleague, and there was nothing I could do to stop the Mikado whatsoever.  My own leader had told me it was my own fault I was being mistreated this way, and I could not think of a way to dispute it.  I realised that my only escape from this shameful, pathetic existence was death.  I decided that I would commit suicide - that I had no other choice.  I waited until the middle of the day, when I did not have guard duty but my tormentor and our leader did, and I took my sword and came out to this very clearing with every intention of ending my life."  He sighed a little at the memory, looking introspective, pained, regretful.  Taiga stared at him, rapt and horrified.  That such things could not only happen but could happen to someone as powerful and, to him, invincible as Mon was unthinkable.  Suddenly his own bleak situation didn't seem nearly so terrible.  
    "Your father was eleven years my senior," Mon continued.  "I had had little interaction with him up til then.  He spoke little; he was an excellent warrior, but I knew nothing else about him.  I also did not know that he had become aware of our colleague's activities against me, and of our leader's refusal to help.  He had seen me take my sword into the forest alone, and he followed me.  I had just plunged the tip of the sword into my belly and was going to slice it open and die here, when your father tackled me and snatched the sword away, and the only damage I did was superficial.  I tried to fight him off, but he took the sword and stuck it in his belt and refused to give it back to me.  
    "'Let me die!' I yelled at him.  'You don't know what I have to face every day!  I cannot stand it one moment more!'  But he sat down next to me and explained that he did, in fact, know what was happening to me, that he found it despicable and that he would ensure our colleague never bothered me again, though he could do no more to stop the Mikado's advances than I could.  He promised me, too, that these abuses would not last forever.  'It will get better, eventually,' he said.  'The Mikado will grow bored with you before too long.  It seems unbearable, but you are stronger than you know.  Don't make a mistake you can't undo.'  
    "I was furious with him at the time.  I resolved to find a day when he was preoccupied, when I could finish what I had begun.  But that very evening, when the men returned from guard duty, I watched as your father walked straight up to the man who had been abusing me and challenged that man to a duel in the yard.  He was merciless, your father.  He had promised this person would not bother me again, and he kept his word.  And I thought then that perhaps he had a good point about things not staying awful forever.  I decided to persevere a little longer, to see what happened.  A few months later, the Mikado tired of me as well, and that was the end of it.  If I hadn't waited just that last little bit, I would never have been able to enjoy the life I've led ever since.  I owe your father my life and much more.  He was my dearest friend."  
    Taiga stared at him.  "I see," he said at last, unable to think of anything else he could say.  
    "I know that you think your father hated you, Taiga.  And I know that you hate him for how he treated you since your brother died, and for his callousness in the face of your loved ones' deaths.  But you cannot know the pain and sadness your father hid from the world... and the affection, too."  
    Taiga looked at the ground.  
    "Your father was a complicated man, and a closed-off man, but I believe I knew him better than anyone.  So you must believe me when I tell you that you meant more to him than you can guess."  Mon sighed again.  "When your father was dying, he asked me to help you - to make sure that you finished your training, that you were able to transition into the huntership smoothly.  He asked again and again - his every thought was for you and your welfare.  I know that it didn't seem like it to you, Taiga, but your father loved you dearly.  Losing Touji was all the more difficult for him because it meant you could not have the carefree life he had worked so hard to give you.  He cherished you more than anyone in the world.  But your father was a proud man who had been taught that emotions are a sign of weakness, so the greater his grief, the more he disguised it with stoicism.  He loved your mother deeply.  He never got over losing her and your sister.  You and your brother were his greatest treasures because she still lived in you.  He trained you so harshly because of concern for your future.  He was so afraid to lose you that he wanted to make sure you could defend yourself from any threat.  He wanted to make you strong enough to survive.  That was the only way he knew to express his love.  When he realised that he was dying, you were the only thing he thought of.  I promised him I would help you, and I intend to keep that promise."  
    The boy could not meet his leader's eye.  He clenched his fingers against his thighs and bit his lip, knowing he must not cry; but the truth was, angry and resentful as he had been towards his father, he could see, from a detached, clearheaded perspective, that everything Mon said was true.  Thinking of what the older man had just told him, he realised that the hated escape practice had very likely been a direct response to Mon's experiences as a teenager.  His father was trying to make sure that no one ever got the better of his son.  Same with the sparring matches, the strength training, the endurance runs, the survival exercises in the mountains.  Suddenly he wished desperately that he had bid his father goodbye before Lord Amusuran had left on that mission.  If only Taiga had known... had been able to see...  
    "Are you all right?"  
    Taiga nodded quickly.  He did not trust himself to speak.  
    "So you see," said Mon after a moment, "as lonely and hopeless as you may feel, nothing is so bad that death is the only option.  And though your family are gone, you are not alone.  The current Hunters are all good, trustworthy men.  You must not hesitate to ask for their help if you find you are struggling.  Any one of them would be willing to help you learn and improve.  And I will make sure that you aren't sent on any missions until I know that you're ready.  You have nothing to worry about."  
    Taiga nodded again.  "Thank you, sir," he murmured.  
    A moment passed uncertainly; then Mon stood.  "Good," he said, as if making an announcement to himself.  "Let's head back, then.  We'll have time to get in a skirmish or two before Sun and Taga take you into Kousenkyo to practice blending in.  Keep up."  And just like that, it was back to training.  But at last things were finally starting to look just a little bit more hopeful.

**Author's Note:**

> I highly doubt anyone will read this story, since Tanda isn't in it LOL, but I'm going to babble here anyhow.
> 
> Did you know that Jin has his own manga? It's short (one volume) and really, really, really, really depressing. It has never been translated into English (because why would it be), but I've got a copy and in the process of very... slowly... translating it, I have gained a great appreciation for this character and for the world he inhabits. [Insert lament about the rest of the book series never getting translated/the anime only having one season/the whole thing not being popular compared to various less-worthy anime/etc etc etc whine moan sob.] Anyhow, I've started posting it over on [Tumblr](https://platypusbutt.tumblr.com/), if you want to read it. Posting is irregular.


End file.
